A Change In The Weather (Patreon)

A Change in the Weather

by Arik C Grant © 1996

Aeryn Winters watched oxygen coalesce along the tops of the mountains and wondered how they would look in a few years. Not a few million years, but literally a few years. Pausing to reacquaint herself with her subject, she hypothesized the fate of the landscape. Would her pictures be the only artistic memory of this planet as it was?

Would people care? It was as barren as its astrogational designation: R/23/G/04, shortened to the equally uninspiring “23-4". Aeryn wondered about the Department of Colonization and Exploration’s two faces: the exciting, colorful lives of the scouts exploring new territory for the Central Alliance, and the dull, grey lives of bookkeepers who catalogued data.

Aeryn herself wore two hats while on 23-4. Enduring her time as a Kiene University xeno-biology student, she’d found only basic alkaloids--like on any number of planets. Approval was given to engineer 23-4 to support the complex organisms of the Centrality: humans, zhulescu, thenn and others. The opportunity to study the planiforming process was too good to pass up; Kiene University had sent students from a variety of disciplines, Aeryn among them.

She was also an artist, her primary passion. She minored in art; her interest well-known to her classmates. She’d arrived at the shuttle with half her allotted baggage listed as art supplies. Professor Shikaani had muttered about divided loyalties and waved her aboard.

Once her daily studies were completed, she drew mist-shrouded mountains. The oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere being engineered around the world pooled in the lowlands, forcing the original helium-based atmosphere into space. Frozen water at the poles was melted, while underground liquid water was liberated by explosives. Spewing dust into the atmosphere, this made a greenhouse effect raising the temperature to a comfortable level. For now, the workers and students wore thermal body gloves and parkas.

Aeryn drew a changing world of red iron oxides and white sulphuric splatters, sickly yellows and dull oranges. Greens would be imported, and blue water would trickle among brown roots, nourishing alien plants to feed people bred on other worlds. But 23-4 would be home to them. They would belong here.

Aeryn did not belong here. A friend had said that sapient species in the galaxy stopped evolving long ago, since evolution happened when an organism adapted to its environment. Once a being started creating, it adapted the environment to itself. The impetus for evolution was removed, leaving only civilization-- a perception of the organism effecting the change. The statement hit Aeryn as she watched the atmosphere being pushed away. First mud huts, Now worlds.

But was that so wrong? It had an abundance of resources: water, gravity, core heat, all the variables that practically gift-wrapped it for Centrality planiformers. To not develop it would be waste. A treasure of possibilities awaited, buried beneath the dull topsoil. And then? After enduring the galaxy’s wrath for billions of years, the planet would be replaced by one that was not quite a duplicate. With art, however, she recorded more than common holoshots before the planet was made palatable for the makers of mud huts.

Footsteps sounded behind her.

“Philosophizing again?” Came the voice of her friend Senna, familiar despite the cold weather suit’s muffling. A tall zhulescu, Senna mixed with the other students until their company wore thin. She took walks, while Aeryn tended towards stationary isolation.

“Artwork,” Aeryn replied. “I suppose that qualifies.” Oddly, of everyone in the camp, Senna was the person she could talk to at length-- Aeryn, from a human homeworld, had never met aliens before attending University. Senna complimented Aeryn’s work as she sat, folding digitigrade legs beneath her.

“Given a few billion years the alkalids might have done something,” Senna hinted. “We’ll never know.” Aeryn nodded, ambivalent about company right now. Senna continued. “Now, blank paper challenges you to fill it with something wonderful. Fill it with anything less, you’ve ruined that chance to reflect dreams. A waste,” she said, gazing at the mountains. Aeryn listened as Senna continued, unrelenting. “These engineers have a planetary canvas to paint. They’re fulfilling dreams that will live on long after we’re dead. Just as that paper image will,” she commented matter-of-factly. Aeryn sketched some more, intent on every detail. Senna watched, but waited before speaking again.

“A round organism squeezing into a square burrow. You want some advice?” Aeryn shrugged.

“Sure,” she said, “advice is free, right?”

“Forget xenobiology,” Senna said, leaning back. “You’re not flaky enough to be a scientist. Be an artist. It’s what you really want. You never pour this much of yourself into your studies.”

“I’ve spent a lot of money--” Aeryn argued. Senna cut her off.

“--To get mediocre grades in your declared major while excelling in art. Professor Shikaani says you should draw organisms, not study them.” she said with a sly twinkle. “In fact, he’s said that several times. When you’re not around.” Aeryn was aghast. Not at the oblique rebuke of her professor and friend, but at the possibility they were correct. Her moments of peace and enjoyment came from drawing, not dissecting.

“So I switch majors?” Aeryn challenged. Senna took the bait.

“Your biology background will make you an excellent life artist. You’ll draw things that people didn’t know were there, landscapes before they’re changed forever. And your work will be all the more for it.” Aeryn considered it. As the planet’s original, unfulfilling self surrendered to a new, more colorful existence, so could she. Senna sat quietly; her mission accomplished. She felt that the galaxy would lose a middle-quality xeno-biologist for an excellent artist. It was, she figured, a good trade.

“C’mon,” Senna said, standing. Far down the canyon, a wind was blowing and clouds began to roll; the first weather patterns were manifesting themselves on the surface of 23-4. Soon it would have a new identity. She offered a hand to her friend. “We better get inside,” she said, “I feel a change in the weather.”